Playboy Unleashes 250GB HDD With 56 Years Of Back Issues

Gentleman's magazine Playboy has released 56 years worth of Playboy magazine on a 250GB hard disk drive for a mere $300 making it the perfect gift for some of us ahead of Christmas.

The "collector's edition" includes every print issue from December 1953 to December 2009, that's more than 650 issues and in excess of 100,000 pages, all available, according to Playboy, at the user's fingertips.

The hard drive is compatible with Macs and PCs and according to some is hot swappable and comes with ample protection. We don't know whether it is shockproof or will handle spillages but it does come with one year warranty.

Playboy will not be providing any updates for future magazines (or indeed those from the last 12 months) unlike National Geographic which allocation more than 100GB worth of hard disk space for future updates.

The Playboy HDD comes with more than 200GB worth of free space. Bondi Digital sells the DVD version of one decade (the 1950's) for $66.15 on Amazon.

Whether it is a last ditch attempt by a struggling publisher to make the most out of a shrinking audience remains to be seen.